As the one having the footrest apparatus of this type, there is a massaging chair disclosed in JP-A-11-299565.
The massaging chair is provided with a seatback portion on the rear side of a sitting portion and a footrest on the front side thereof, the seatback portion is provided with a massaging portion such as an airbag, and the footrest is provided with a pair of left and right holding grooves for fitting legs to be held therein and massaging portions such as airbags provided on both sides of the holding grooves.
The seatback portion is reclinable in the front-rear direction, and the footrest is swingably provided on the front side of the sitting portion through a supporting member. The seatback portion and the footrest are interlocked in such a manner that footrest swings upward when the seatback portion is reclined downward, while the footrest swings downward when the seatback portion is returned toward the upright position.
The massaging chair as described above is not only used for massaging, but also simply as a chair in many cases.
Especially, in the massaging chair of this type, since it often includes a soft cushion incorporated in the sitting portion, and the seatback portion has a reclining function, it is suitable for being used as a sofa.
However, as regards the footrest, since the holding grooves are formed for lower limbs, more specifically, for calves of the legs on one side thereof, a user is required to fit his/her lower limbs into the holding grooves even when he/she does not use the massaging function, whereby free movement of the legs is restrained, and hence relaxed position cannot be taken easily. It is also one of the causes which impair the appearance of the chair.
Since a surface of the other side of the footrest is substantially flat and is capable of being used as a lower limb resting surface, it is expected that the appearance can be improved by orienting the surface of this side frontward.
However, the technology disclosed in JP-A-11-299565 does not have a structure to rotate the footrest to allow any one of these surfaces to be used.
In view of such problems described above, it is an object of the invention to provide a footrest apparatus in which the position of a footrest can be changed freely between a position with the surface for massaging lower limbs oriented frontward and a position with the lower limb resting surface oriented frontward.